Thursday, April 23, 2009

Creating in Between

encaustic monotypesbetween the between

Untitled60"x38"Kozo

Did you know that Picasso worked for 72 hours straignt? Or that Van Gogh turned out 200 finished paintings during his 444 days in Arles? Yesterday I finished 3 large paintings and after going to bed I wondered what I would work on today.

The obvious would have been to grab another panel and continue making more work in the same series. Having worked steadily on this series for over a month and producing 11 seems quite productive.

I believe that creating every day and showing up in the studio is my life. My art-committed life. So, whether the work is good or not, it doesn't matter. Right? I'm dancing again! It's the love of creating that sometimes is blurred with love, obsession or plain effort and compulsion. One thing that is true for artists is the fact that creating regularly is honing your craft!

Today I decided to set up for creating some works on paper. Printmaking -- Encaustic Monotypes!It took me 2 hours to set up and organize the work flow. The heat boxes with the aluminum anodized plate is awesome! Could not find any tech notes, but it came back to me slowly.

Sometimes this work in between hard work loosens you up, refreshes you and I know I do this in between my painting sets. It's a luxury to be able to work in different media and see what happens.

The piece at the top of this post is the first piece. Reminds me of a birthday cake with candles... my birthday is around the corner already! There I go -- jumping in and going with my impluse to be carefree and wildly experiment. The paper was my last and longest piece of Yatsumoto Kozo. I didn't feel like cutting it up so I decided to have fun with the 60 inches!!! It's a great feeling to relax and play around in between concentrated work.And, no I don't watercolor...Here are some of the playful works that happened in the studio today. There's something going on with 6 circles...hmmmm. (please excuse the photo quality)

Blue 122"x18"Sumi

Blue 222"x18"Sumi

White Circles22"x18"Sumi

Green 134"x18"Sumi

White Square18"x30"Sumi

Finale23"x18"Sumi

Tomorrow is Friday and I have no idea what I'm going to work on. But, I will be there making something! Hope you're dancing in your studio and that your work is going well.

To say yes, you have to sweat androll up your sleeves andplunge both hands intolife up to the elbows.

3 comments:

Wonderful! Yes, it's so important to just keep on doing, experimenting, playing. So many great surprises can come of it that may find their way into your other work. I love these and can imagine what fun encaustic monotypes must be.

As you may already know, the goopy textures of my acrylics take forever to set up and then cure! Encaustics give instant gratification. I resist converting my studio to doing encaustics, but the thought still nags at me now and then. Like when I feast my eyes on your beautiful work.

Same to you M! Your experimenting often is rubbing off on me and the surprises are worth the time and effort. I read and researched the encaustic medium for 1 year before I slowly dived in and there is a lot of technical stuff to it.

Now that I'm not doing encaustic only I'm always facinated with your Acrylic textures. I took a Golden Gel Mediums workshop a few years back, and still can't say that I can imitate what I get from wax.

It's great getting energy from each others art and process! Anytime you wanna talk wax, just ask. I used to teach when I had my big studio.Depending on what you want to do with wax, the setup can be simple... it's an alluring medium especially if you like texture like I know you do! Have a lovefest with your new grandbaby girl!!!